- It's the applications, stupid
- Will a whitelist save personal computing?
- Thousands of Web sites under attack
- To solve the unsolvable problem
- Re-thinking the security of virtual machines
- Security Development Lifecycle trumps code complexity
- Is your Web site FIPS compliant?
- Computer security: Why have least privilege?
- Strategic security: Get a handle on authentication
- Control user installs of software
March 05, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Apple web support doesn't like IE 7 (which leads to a rant)
Or is it that IE 7 doesn't like Apple web support?
As noted in my InfoWorld column a few weeks ago on security podcasts, I'm a big fan of the iPod.
I've been having problems with iTunes connecting to the Music Store. About three weeks ago, iTunes just stopped connecting, saying "The Music Store is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later". All computers in my house are impacted. Nothing in our configurations have changed lately, except maybe some auto-update patches from Microsoft, plus the latest iTunes players are installed (nearly a weekly update).
I went to www.apple.com/support with IE 7 Beta1 to get some help, and low and behold the connection attempt errors out and the page doesn't display. I tried it with a few other computers running the same browser and got the same result. Strangely, IE 7 Beta1 worked a few weeks ago. IE 6 and Firefox work fine.
Regarding my iTunes to Mustic Store problem, I sniffed my iTunes to Music Store connection to see if Windows Firewall or my network firewall was causing the problem. I tried to use Microsoft's Network Monitor for a change to see how it would do, but I missed Ethereal's better interface and Follow TCP Stream feature too much. Ethereal's Follow TCP Stream feature is great on HTTP problems, collecting the browser and server response activity in one screen (like you can do with Paros Proxy, but without the trap feature).
The dump revealed that my iTunes was connecting to the store alright, but the store immediately connected back and sent a re-direct request, which said, "Access denied by access control list". What? Has my IP been blacklisted?
[itunes rant on]
No problem, I'll call iTunes support, get a tech on the line, and then spend my hundreds of dollars that I want to spend (I'm the only guy I know who actually pays for his music
My wife thinks iTunes incredibly slow response and other Windows-only issues is Jobs way of getting the world to switch to iMacs. I was getting ready to buy a new iMac this upcoming week (so I can learn more about OS X...and many of my security friends are raving about it), but if this is representative of Apple's support policies (and I've heard the horror stories), forget it.
Jobs, maybe you should sell songs for $1.05 and get some real tech support.
Of course, an even worse sin is how (if you didn't back up your songs or playlist locally) if your computer crashes, you can't just re-download your purchased songs from iTunes. It's easy enough to backup your Playlist, but if I'm buying all my music from the Music Store, why doesn't the Music Store allow me to automatically re-download my purchased songs to my same PC again without a big hassle? I heard of many people who had to re-buy the same music again.
Or how about how you can't install iTunes without installing QuickTime, which always installs itself to your System tray. And iTunes always adds itself to the Quick Start tray, without asking.
[/itunes rant off]
Posted by Roger Grimes on March 5, 2006 12:10 PM
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- COMMENTS
Think about it for a minute ..
why would apple want an ie7 user to have trouble to connect and BUY stuff from itunes? It would be insane to do so.
Now ask why would MS not want you to connect to itunes and buy from them ? Maybe you would get slacked off and go buy from someother MS friendly music service and their music players ?
Seems to me the only people gaining from this are MS and the only losers are apple..
Oh by the way.. IE7 Is a BETA !!!!!!!!! dont you remeber what betas are ? use at your own risk.. maybe pproblems too ?
I uninstalled IE7 on my friends PC cause everything was layed out different abit like the new office.. what makes MS think that people want to relearn the layout of their interface.. My friend is jow avaerage user and he hated it so MS is stuffing up for the average user..
PS I have had no trouble with Apple support before I use a PC daily at work and have switched to a Mac in the last 12 months for my home system after 20 years of MS windows actually DOS first. So I can see from both sides of the fence..
A) You installed Beta Software on your computer so what do you expect? Why would you expect Apple to support a beta version of a browser. The problem is not with Apple but with Microsoft. If you read the information about Beta products, Microsoft highly suggests that you do not install it on a machine you use for everyday use. I don't know which bank you do your online banking, but I bet they don't support IE 7 Beta either. Rant is going the wrong way :)
Posted by: Niels Hansen at March 5, 2006 03:24 PMThanks for writing. Yes, I know I'm running beta software. I also run IE 6, Mozilla, Firefox, and Konqueror.
The point is that up until a few weeks ago, IE 7 Beta1 worked. I didn't update the beta software, but now the web site is broken.
Yes, there are many sites that don't support IE 7, but both of my banks have no problem with it.
Posted by: Roger A. Grimes at March 5, 2006 03:58 PMI have had several customers that have had problems with their iPod and iTunes. Performance problems, etc. Support has been nothing but bad for most of them.
Posted by: JoeM at March 5, 2006 07:59 PMAs for being able to redownload a song because you failed to back it up sounds just as silly as having an audio cd replaced for free because you lost it. Sure it's not as simple as a download, but imagine all of the possibilities for fraud. You lose the song, that's your fault. Data loss is something we all have to deal with at some point if we use computers. Learning to back up is required. Plain and simple. However, you do have me wondering about what kinds of license agreement terms Apple has in place for downloaded music. If you were told prior to downloading the song that you couldn't redownload it if lost, you'd take better precautions for safeguarding your precious music. I'm guessing Apple has this disclaimer somewhere.
Posted by: Cf at March 6, 2006 09:51 AMUpdate to IE7 beta 2. That resolved almost every web site accessing issue beta 1 had for me. Also, be sure to reinstall the latest version of Java client, even if already installed and seemingly working okay.
Posted by: BM at March 6, 2006 05:04 PMFinally, solved!
As I suspected early on (but ruled out after sniffing traffic), the problem was caused by my Microsoft ISA 2004 server firewall.
ISA 2004 implements a strict intepretation of a related RFC and this change "broke" my connection to iTunes MusicStore. How or why this strict feature got turned on when I didn't patch or re-configure ISA server recently, is still a mystery.
Microsoft has released a hotfix for this problem:
KB 915045. I called Microsoft Patch Support and got it for free. Thanks to Susan Bradley for the heads up.
However, I couldn't get the hot fix to load. It kept saying that I didn't have the right version of the software or something like that.
Tom Shinder (of www.isaserver.org fame) suggested that I disable the web proxy filter on the outbound port 80 rule as a work around. That did work.
Yea...I'm back in business and I bought several new songs, including Johnny Cash's latest. I got turned on to Johnny Cash after watching the new movie and after listening to Steve Gibson's security podcast a few weeks ago...where they promoted the Essential John Cash iPod download.
And although it was a firewall problem, as Apple email support suggested, I'm still not happy that Apple's billion dollar iTunes Music Store has no phone support.
The multiple emails from Apple support kept telling to configure my firewall to allow me to connect to the MusicStore, which I had already done. I had sent traces to the MusicStore to help troubleshoot. They never read the traces, and only sent back boilerplated replies, asking me to open my firewall up.
Three times they sent me emails saying that if I wasn't satisfied with the replies to call iTunes/iPod phone support, which I did. They don't support iTunes Music Store. A communication's problem, I guess.
Anyway, problem solved. My firewall caused it.
Roger, thanks so much! i had run into the same problem, if it wasn't for this article I'd still be trying to sort this mystery out.
Posted by: tom walker at October 27, 2006 05:33 PM
